Knitting, ADD-stylee

Knitty’s Summer 2009 issue is full of all sorts of lovely patterns…as usual. However, they’ve also thoughtfully marked a few that they think are ideal for both knitting during hot summer weather and planning for holiday gift-giving during the cold winter months. (Clearly a Northern Hemispherist POV; those of you SH-types can of course do this in reverse and start your afghans now. 😉 )

As you can see, it’s taken me awhile to get to the point of checking out the new issue, and even now I’ll confess I haven’t made it all the way through yet—I’ve simply been too busy. But as I’ve related before, if I’m not cooking or writing, chances are good I’m knitting. It’s not often I spend much time in front of the TV unless I’ve got knitting needles in hand, and with the amount of motorsports I watch, I’m surprised I haven’t knit any tire warmers yet. (Note to self—future fan project? 😉 )

My main point in writing this article is, I’m not sure that my particular issue with holiday knitting is the same as everyone else’s. I could be wrong, of course, which is why I’m asking: when you’re knitting, does it end up something like this:

Many of you are doubtless nodding your heads in assent, possibly rather vehemently. The key, though, is in where you go from there. Do you have sufficient willpower to continue knitting whatever it is that you’re currently working on, making sure to address all proper finishing touches before moving onto your next project?

I…well, I try. I try very hard to do that. For one, I tell myself, I’ve only got so many knitting needles in so many sizes. Unlike some people, I don’t really have many multiples in the same size—unless we’re talking a set of 5 DPNs of the same size, of course. Or the pairs of matching circulars I have for sock-knitting.

Knitpicks seem to enable this sort of behavior, too—this serial non-completion (thanks, Andy) of projects in favor of shinier, newer, more exciting ones. In my case, the completion issue is also to do with how utterly loathsome I find weaving in ends. It reminds me of a book I had as a child about proper care and feeding of guinea pigs. To this day, I still recall one phrase from the book verbatim: “Guinea pigs will eat (but not enjoy) potato chips.” Apart from wondering how the author came by that information, switch out “I” for “Guinea pigs” and “do” for “eat” and “the weaving in of ends” for “potato chips” and you’ve got my basic approach. Knitpicks apparently feels my pain; they’ve got lovely modular circulars that have little caps for the ends of the cables so you can just abandon any project you’re knitting on them mid-stream, to be finished later.

I understand that this will happen from time to time, and that anyone who knits with any sort of frequency probably has one or two projects they’ve thrown over in favor of something else.

But I do it more frequently than I’ve previously liked to admit. It’s not that I frog projects outright; rarely does that happen, unless I’ve figured out too late (and for value of “too late,” I mean “after having stupidly started said project”) that this isn’t a project for me. It’s more…well, you’ll probably never catch me having the dedication to knit a lace tablecloth, let’s say. The patterns are fun, don’t get me wrong, and I enjoy thinking about what I’m doing more than my habit of watching a good movie while knitting might suggest. But I think it’s the repetition that does it. I can handle a shawl or a wrap made of lace, sometimes, but larger than that? I guarantee it’ll take a few years, because I’ll keep starting it, throwing it over in favor of something else, and then coming back to it (eventually)—IF I can convince myself to get over the knit-lag of forgetting just where I was on the project to begin with. (I do take notes, but reading your notes isn’t the same as the innate memory you have of where you are in a project when you’re working on it constantly, headed toward completion.)

This may be why I usually stick with smaller projects—they’re more likely to hold my interest the whole way through. That’s probably also why I can knit my Cthulhu and Flying Spaghetti Monster pouches in just a couple of hours.

And yes, I’m well aware that making little pouches that are really thinly-disguised amigurumi does involve a lot of fiddling about with weaving in of ends and other tricky bits. I never claimed this was a logical problem. Perhaps that’s why I find it so perplexing. XD

Anyway, um, does anyone else have this problem? JUST WONDERING. 🙂

That having been said, I’ve got grand plans for something for my sister and something for Joe that I should really start on soon. We’re already up to the 7th of August—time’s wasting!

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